Chetan Bhagat takes a swipe at R Madhavan’s career as actor says 3 Idiots is better than the book.

Actor Madhavan and author Chetan Bhagat got into a playful spat, which later appeared to be a promotional gimmick for the recently-released Netflix show, Decoupled. In the series, Madhavan, who plays the second-bestselling author in India, is constantly in competition with Chetan, who plays himself.

It began when Chetan answered a ‘movies vs books’ question by tweeting, “My books, and the movies based on them.” Madhavan said that he is biased towards films, to which the author replied, “Have you ever heard anyone ever say the movie is better than the book?”

“YES! 3 Idiots,” Madhavan replied, with several laughing emoticons. The film, where he played an engineering student, was based on Chetan’s book Five Point Someone. Chetan requested Madhavan to not ‘preach to the choir’. “You’re flaunting 3 Idiots to me? Don’t try to preach to the choir, maybe you should actually go and read my books.” The actor asked the author why he acted in Decoupled if he was partial towards books.